


Snow Hell

by Kifujin Kitade (KifujinKitade)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:17:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KifujinKitade/pseuds/Kifujin%20Kitade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superbi Squalo is Snow White. Or at least, he's trying. XS! Warnings: crack, OOC and OCs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Hell

Snow White

Chapter 1 – The Hobson's choice

Once upon a time in a faraway country a beautiful queen who really wanted to give birth to a little girl.

She was a very, very nice woman, but in her life, she had never got what she really wanted. For instance, when she was younger, she asked Santa in a letter to bring her a sweet doll with curly blonde hair and blue eyes she saw in an advertisement, but instead, she got a transformer figurine. In spite of the fact she had been a really lovely girl in her teenage years, she could never become the high school beauty queen. It had always been that Barbie bitch who won all the beauty contests. And finally, she couldn't even marry the man she loved, Ken, since the guy happened to be as gay as… Well, as Ken.

But she was a princess, too, so in the end she still became a queen.

A winter night, it was snowing. The queen was at her window, watching the snow fall from the cold sky while sewing little dresses for a girl. This was an obsession for her: there were already two gigantic rooms filled with baby and girlish stuffs.

She pricked her finger with the nail. Blood fell on the dark window.

"Ah" She sighed when she saw it. "If only I could have a little girl with the skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony."

This wish, at least, was granted. Many months later she was giving birth to the long awaited baby…

No. Not exactly.

"Where is she…" She was panting on the operating table, exhausted but gleaming with happiness. "Where is my sweet little girl?"

The doctor looked at her, sweat dropping.

"Er… Mrs. the queen, do you remember, you said you wanted a little girl with black hair, white skin, etc.? You surely can recall it, since you've been nagging everyone with that for nine months now… So… say hello to your baby!"

He showed the queen a crying, screaming, writhing form with hair as white as snow, cheeks as red as blood, and fortunately nothing else as dark as ebony on the body.

The queen stared at her child, a bit disappointed. But she felt she didn't have much time left, so she smiled at the toddler.

"It's alright. After all, that's my child. Now, doctor, can you cut the umbilical cord, please? I want to take my adorable girl in my arms…"

"Ahem… Madam… That's your son's penis."

"Ah?"

Then she died.

 

Chapter 2 – Femme fatale

One year later, the king, a depraved and weak-willed womanizer (yet a nice guy), and the late queen's husband, got married again. At least, the deep respect and consideration he had for his late spouse prevented him from taking that Barbie bitch as a second wife. As a substitute, he chose the second place for the same high school's beauty competition.

The first queen's child grew to be a very noisy kid. Maybe, his father thought, maybe it had been an error, when his son still was a kid, to force him wear all the pink fairy and princess dresses and live in that bedroom which had been clearly made for a girl.

"Yeah…" the king was pondering, from time to time, "perhaps should we buy him more… Mmh… more boyish things, like cars, planes…"

But all that anguish was melting like ice on the sun every time his sexy wife was showing him few more square centimeters of forbidden skin. May the reader forgive him his flaws, as his only weakness was that he was weak.

Back to our unconventional princess.

Let's say that, for a reason or another, his parents decided to call him Squalo.

People first presumed it was a very normal thing for a baby to cry out loud all over the day. It is, indeed. But when, when the boy reached his teenage years, he still was deafening everyone in the castle with curses, complaints such as 'You fucktards, why do I have to let my hair grow like a goddamn chick?', people started to ask themselves if that was only because of the foolish age.

Yet the queen didn't want to know anything about it. She was too busy watching, watching, watching every day at her reflect in a body-length mirror a valet would bring her. The gadget, the con artist Mammon said when she sold it to the queen (together with the valet Fran as a bonus), could tell its owner who was the most beautiful person in the country.

"Mirror, mirror," She always asks the glass "Am I the most beautiful woman in the kingdom?"

"Voooi! Old woman!" Squalo once barged in her room during a 'mirror-mirror séance' and yelled. "You're really getting old if you keep on talking alone."

"Get lost!" The queen burst. "At least I'm not some kind of crossdresser people confuse with a girl!"

"Voi! That's because I've no other clothes!" The long haired boy hissed while pointing at the beautiful dress he was wearing. "And you old shit won't give me money to buy normal ones!"

The queen threw charmingly her brown her back. "Fu! I need money to buy make up and shampoo for my wonderful hair, and also creams for my skin and-"

"Your majesty," A monotonous voice rose from behind the mirror, "wouldn't it be easier to use a bag to hide your emaciated face instead?"

"Fraaaan!" The queen's vocals were reaching soprano. "I'm fed up of your insolence! Off his head!"

"You got the wrong tale." Squalo and Fran said simultaneously.

 

Chapter 3 – Prisoner of conscience

"Her majesty is indeed a very beautiful person," One day the mirror said to the stepmother, "but Snow White… Oh, excuse me… Squalo is by far more beautiful than you."

As we all know since long, mirrors talk not. The queen was just experiencing what we usually call a schizophrenia crisis. Years earlier, though, the answers were always the same: "Her majesty is the most beautiful one… Perhaps she should add a little more Botox in the cheeks, but she still is gorgeous… If she tilts her head a little, like this, yes, this way, she still is the most beautiful in the kingdom… Maybe a bag…"

"Oooh… That Squalo…" The queen was pacing back and forth in her bedroom, jealousy twisting her not-so-old, and in the same time not-so-young face. "How dare you! Even if this is the last thing I have to do in my life, I'll get revenge! Reveeeenge!..."

"Your majesty!" Fran was pleading, half hiding behind the mirror. "Please, remember I'm chained up to this," he knocked at the mirror's frame, "and actually can't close my eyes to that poor dramatic interpretation."

"Reveeeenge!"

Fran was grimacing behind his motionless face. "Ugh. That wasn't better. Listen, Mrs. old witch (and please notice I'm trying hard to be polite). You're old, wrinkled, and I'm sure you're already rotting under all those layers of moisturizing cream. Now even a man like your son can be considered more good-looking than-"

"To the jail!" The queen screamed.

And since that day, one could hear from the castle's donjon a deadly monotonous voice saying : « I have no regret ! », and dull complaint would always be completed by a "Vooi! Keep your goddamn mouth close!"

The queen had other problems to take care of, problems involving more makeup and more Botox.

"Arr! All those stupid brats!" She said while spreading eau de Cologne all over her slowly aging body. "And I am not old. These aren't wrinkles, they are only… smile wrinkles?"

"No, those are bridles!" The voice said again.

"Shut it!"

The queen burst into tears. "Oh, Lord! Why all this torment? Why this cross I have to bear at the best moment of my life? I have everything: wealth, money, health… but no beauty! Ah! And now the most beautiful one is my stepson? A man, moreover? Why is it? Because he has that long and shiny silver hair? Because his greyish eyes still are glistening with youth? Or because his skin is a rosy and smooth as a baby's and his waist as slender as a one of a maiden? Ah, I'm dying with jealousy!"

So she thought, and gradually a plot of revenge began to foment her aging brain cells. That was it. She had to get rid of him, to erase his existence from the surface of the earth…

"And then I'll be the most beautiful one! Ooh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

In the middle of that annoying as well as futile soliloquy, Squalo kicked the queen's bedroom door open. "Voi! Can't you shut the fuck up? I've been trying to sleep for two fucking hours now!"

Then, to conclude this chapter, we can say that, once again, beauty has nothing to do with what comes out from one's mouth.

 

Chapter 4 – Altruism

For some unknown reason, it had been decided to leave the princess in the wood. Retrospectively, it was a very unwise decision, when you take into account all the money the queen had; she could have hire a hit man from the very start, or at least, buy rat poison. The Squalo guy was so stupid he could have eaten it and say it was the best dish he had had for ages. But we'll go back to this later.

For now, let's just say no one actually disagreed about the queen's verdict. On the contrary, they were relieved, pleased, so happy they wouldn't have to deal anymore with the princess' bad temper and his stepmother's unhealthy jealousy. The night they threw the silverette out, they held a party with a big P in the castle. It was only justice after all the problems they had the morning to throw him out.

First, everyone, from the soubrettes to the kitchen hands, acted the most natural way possible. Every time Squalo whined about his hair being pulled too hard by the maid who was brushing it, the latter would just smile patiently and sweet talk him until the silver head was so sickened with all the affectation he just had to let go. And no one said anything about the cross-dressing thing anymore. Yes, that morning, everyone had been unusually gracious and courteous with the princess.

A real bunch of rotten hypocrites.

But they also felt they couldn't take it long, hence the queen said Squalo had to get out before lunch time. And before lunch time, Squalo got out, still with a very subtle reason: she gave him money to buy masculine clothes.

…

"Voooi! Are we there yet? You stupid Leviathan, we've been walking in this fucking wood for hours!" Squalo complained to the guard who was supposed to accompany him to town.

"I don't understand…" Levi replied whilst turning over and over a map the queen gave him. "The map says we're already in the town, but all I can see is trees and bushes…" But what he didn't know was that everyone agreed on getting rid of him too. He was the common vilain petit canard.

"Fuck off, you damn shit. We're lost!"

"We're not… It's just…" He scrutinized alternately the map and his surroundings. "Very difficult… And complicated…"

The long haired man kicked his guide on the face. "Silly scum, I leave you here!"

"Wait! Wait, princess! ("I'm a motherfucking man!") It's this way! It's this way… Oh! All right! I was fed up with your stupid mouth anyway, I'll go back to the castle alone!"

But Squalo wasn't listening to him anymore.

"Shitty trash…"He was mumbling furiously in the muddy paths of the wood. "I'm sure they did it on purpose… Raaah! Stupid roots! My ankles are bleeding…" He paused and hopped, rather girlishly. "Those low-life scums… And fuck it! I ain't gonna go back in that damn house where no one wants to see me! Fuck you all!"

And saying this, Squalo went deep into the forest, a stupid grin stretching his lips.

 

Chapter 5 – Comeuppance

The princess was wandering naively in the forest.

There was no one kilometers round, no house, no village, no bus stop and no internet. Squalo was lost. And it took him four hours of starving to understand it. You know, masculine pride. Even if the man was actually wearing fancy dresses, he still could have enough dignity not to ask his way. Even if he's perfectly aware of the fact he won't find another KFC anymore, he will not ask his way.

He was hungry. There was nothing edible growing on the trees, and animals seemed to fear instinctively that shark-like crossdresser. Night was falling on the wood, and, all together with the hunger, came the tiredness. Squalo tried to sleep on the ground, but it looked more like a gigantic carpet of shit and mud. The effeminate part of the silverette couldn't take it.

Thus he walked, walked, walked in the dirt and the cold, night slowly tightening his grip around the lost princess. But, curiously, even wolves and bears didn't want to get close to him. Squalo found some, but probably his beautiful features twisted by famine, drooling saliva and baring teeth, made them run away.

However, when the starving was at its highest, Squalo finally found a little wooden house in a small clearing. The princess knocked gently at the door.

"Vooi!" He screamed while hammering on the door. "Open this goddamn door, you shit! I'm starved… Oh nice, a crowbar!"

Squalo picked up the tool on the ground and used it to force the door. The silverette then came into a tiny room that looked like a diner room made for little kids. The room was void of people, but there were seven dishes on the table, each one filled to the edge with soup. Without thinking about anything, Squalo jumped, just like the fool in the desert running to a mirage, on the fuming potages and gulped them down, voraciously, rapidly. Maybe too rapidly, because one second after he was undergoing the worst indigestion of his pointless life.

He fell down and rolled on the ground, his bloodshot eyes bulging like those of a madman, and foam was starting to come out from his mouth. The princess finally lost consciousness, right there on the floor.

It was only divine intervention if he didn't soil his undies in his comatose state.

 

Chapter 6 – And the Seven Dwarfs

Six little kids were watching, each one with their own expression, the fractured door of their house.

"Ah? Eh? Aaah! Why is the door open?" A silver haired boy shouted when he set his eyes on the door.

"Ah! Ah! Did Tsuna forget to put the lock before we left?" A dark haired one smiled naively at his friend's panicked air.

"That's extremely weird!" A boy with bandaged fists yelled, starting a little girl with an eyepatch on her eye.

"Nee… I'm hungry…" A smaller boy in a pajama was fingering his nose. "Gokudera… Give me candies!"

"Um… Maybe we should come inside to see what has happened, instead of staying here…" Another one, this time with brown hair and big brown eyes, proposed.

They all came in. Five seconds before seeing the princess lying on the floor. Four. Three. Two. One…

"Aaaaaa!" Gokudera pointed at Squalo. "What the hell is that?"

"A-a-a-a-a burglar?" Tsuna stuttered.

"Wait! Did that freak eat all the soup my sister brought yesterday?"

"Ah! Ah! Ah" Lambo was stinging Squalo's nose with a stick. "Look! Look! She's trying to wake up!"

"Oh? Is that a girl?" Yamamoto eyed the princess. "She looks like one, but I think it's a guy."

At that instant, the last inhabitant of the house got out from the staircase, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.

"Hibari! You've been sleeping upstairs all that time?" Gokudera hissed at the newcomer. "And you did nothing to stop that burglar?"

But Hibari just glared at them all, muttered "herbivores", and went to sleep on the table.

"That's so extreme!" Ryouhei shouted again. "Our house has been burgled! Hey, Chrome! Why aren't you saying anything?"

But the boy was yelling so much the girl just quaked and blushed.

"But what should we do…" Yamamoto was puzzled. "Call the police? Firemen? Or the urgency?"

"Che. That only means this place isn't safe anymore." Gokudera furrowed. A statistics chart magically appeared behind him. "It's well known that last year, there were an estimated 2,159,878 burglaries in the country, a decrease of 2 percent when compared with 2009 data, but an increase of 2 percent compared to the 2001 estimate. It's obvious that in our situation, we have a case of forcible entry…"

No one was listening to him. Lambo was starting to cry and throw random things at the others. "Kaaa! I'm hungry! Where's the food?"

"So extremely annoying…"

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

*Blush*

*Snooze*

Tsuna was watching his twisted family with disappointment. What did the kid do to disserve all this? Suddenly, he remembered. "Ah! Everyone! We have a more serious problem here! What are we supposed to do with this person?"

Squalo still was lying, unconscious, on the floor.

The kids (minus Hibari who was sleeping) looked at the princess.

"Hospital." Was Chrome's answer.

"Garbage." Lambo said.

Yamamoto laughed. "That's mean…"

"That's extreme!" Said… you know who.

Hayato adjused his eyeglasses. "Police."

"Chain." Hibari stated unexpectedly.

"Chain?" Everyone questioned.

The boy got up, went to fetch a long chain in the kitchen and with it, tied the older silverette's foot to the table.

"Chain." He stated again before going back to sleep.

 

Chapter 7 – Homemaker

"Voi. Don't walk in here! I'm cleaning the floor right now."

In his castle, Squalo had been a princess…

"The lunch isn't ready yet, shitheads! Don't pull at my apron!"

… But in the seven Vongola's house, he was a slave and nothing more.

"Voooi! I told you I'll iron your pants later! I'm too busy to do that now."

Squalo's daily life was full of cooking, laundry, washing up, ironing, dusting and once again cooking, laundry, washing up… An endless circle that was almost driving him mad. However, the chain tying him to the hellish house still was clenching at his ankle. And to say the truth, it wasn't as if he didn't have anywhere else to go. Go back to the castle? Don't even dream of it. He was too proud to knock at the portal and beg all those scums to let him in. Never. Not even on his deathbed, he wouldn't. That's what he thought the day they abandoned him in the forest, that's what he thought when he was mid-way to hell after eating the poison cooking, that's what he thought when he woke the morning after chained to a table, and that's what he was beginning to doubt when the maddening circle started.

"Princess Squalo…" Lambo came in from the kitchen door. "I want to eat a cupcake. Give me one."

"Voi, you stupid brat! Do I look like I have one?" Squalo answered while fighting against a grease stain on a stove. "And stop fucking calling me 'princess'. I'm a man, for God's sake!"

"Eeeeh. If you're a man, why are you wearing a dress?"

'Because the author of this story has absolutely no imagination' He grunted to himself, and then went back to his scratching. Without looking at the kid, he held out his left arm. "Trash, there's a bottle of cream scrub on the bottom shelf. Give it to… Voooooi! Where the fuck is that shrimp gone?"

"Squalo… Sir…" Tsuna was trembling when he appeared at the door. "Did you call for me?"

"You idiot!"

"Hiiiii!" The brownie head squeaked as the plate which had previously been in the silverette's hand barely missed his head. Tsuna ran away.

Gokudera came in the room. "Hey, freak! Stop frightening everyone. Don't forget you're a freeloader, so you have to show us more respect!"

"Respect?" Squalo leered. "There's one who spends his entire days sleeping on the roof, another one screaming 'To the extreme! To the extreme!' all over the day, and again another one who is smiling like an idiot no matter what you tell him. Why do I have to show respect to such bloody idiots?"

"Shut up! If you keep on yelling like that, it's no good us living in the deepest part of the woods, the queen's assassins will surely find us out, only by following your deafening voice! It's even surprising why they hadn't found you yet. Are they, what, kind of stupid?"

"Gokudera…" Chrome's (who had been hiding in the dark all the time) voice raised. "You're talking loud, too…"

"I'm not! And stop hiding yourself in the dark! That's just too creepy!"

"Humph! Who's disrespectful now? You should show more tact with little girls." The older silverette smirked.

Hayato blushed. Chrome blushed and disappeared in the shadow. Lambo and Ryouhei shouted in chorus that they were starving to the extreme. Hibari reclaimed hamburger. Takeshi's ball broke the kitchen's window pane, and Tsuna was too afraid to come inside to look for it.

'God…' Squalo pondered desperately. 'I want to go back to the castle…'

Even seeing the old queen's face was way better than his current life.

 

Chapter 8 – Ready-made

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The queen asked her mirror, one day after she sent the princess in the forest.

There was another valet who was acting as the useless gadget's legs.

"Fu fu fu… Majesty. How should I put it? How many times should I tell you mirrors don't speak, and that you're just imagining things in your defective brain torn by jealousy? And why the hell do I have to be a bearer? Such a miserable role for me… Ku fu fu fu… This is an utterly unbearable offense!"

"Um… You're saying weird stuffs today, my beautiful mirror…" She stated while caressing the glass, eyes lost somewhere else.

"Hey. Did you listen to what I said?" Mukuro insisted.

"But I'm not reassured… No, I'm not…("Ah, here we go again...")" The queen was pacing back and forth in her bedroom. She was so nervous she was biting anxiously her nails. "No, no, I'm not. Just like Oedipus, or Hamlet or someone I don't recall their name anymore, I want to make sure of my foe's death ("It was stupid not to check on that in the first place!"). I want to see with my own eyes, his cold body, his motionless chest and inaudible pulse… Retrospectively, it had been quite stupid to abandon Squalo in the wood when killing him on the spot would have been more efficient…"

"Majesty!" Leviathan (he finally found his way to the castle after two days of wandering in the forest) ran in the room when the queen's tension was at its highest. "It's terrible, Your Majesty!"

"What? What? Do you want to add more anguish in my current torment?"

"Eh? Wha? Er… This is a rumor going through the kingdom, Madam. More exactly, I think everyone in the country heard it since the voice was very loud…" The queen made a movement of impatience. "Yes… They say the princess is alive! And he's hiding in the forest in the seven Vongolas' house."

"Oh… Those seven kids… Impostors! Traitors! Judas! Now I know what I have to do." Evil laugh. "Yes. It is usually faster and easier and less frustrating to do the things yourself."

"Oh, so you're going to do it yourself?" A dull voice asked from the dungeon. "That's good, too. And you won't have to disguise yourself. Since you left the princess in the wood, you got so old he'll never recognize you. It's good for your plan, isn't it?"

The queen ran out of her bedroom, crying and shouting she wasn't old.

 

Chapter 9 – O anger! O despair! O age my enemy!

The queen easily found the princess. It hadn't been difficult at all, with all the yelling anyone could hear at the edge of the dark forest.

Just like what Fran suggested, the queen wasn't wearing anything like a mask or a veil to hide her face. She only exchanged her royal clothes to simpler ones, not to stand out in the crowd. That day she only came to see how the former princess was doing, and if Squalo wasn't to be considered as a rival anymore.

"Yes, of course, that's very probable." She was rubbing her moisturizing cream -free hands, real chicken's feet. "He's been living in the wood for two months, without being able to take advantage of modern technology, of those delectable sitcoms on TV, and surely there isn't even drinking water where he's living… Hu! A rag, a fungus, an authentic pariah!"

She laughed. She didn't stop to laugh until she reached a charming little house in the middle of the forest, more exactly when she caught the sight of Squalo tranquilly serving their lunches to seven little kids, everyone sitting around a table in a warm and cozy diner room. The scene was displayed galore from a window on whose edge an apple pie was cooling down.

The silverette didn't have any more that presumptuous look on his face, or at least, it was counterbalanced with a little self-effacement, the kind of effacement he had to have with a bunch of insupportable brats, and which was more akin to tolerance than anything else.

Yet, that vision angered the queen. How dare he be so carefree when she had to go through catches and snags only to remain fit to be seen in the morning? (Carefree wasn't exactly the good word: from where she was standing, the queen just couldn't see the chain locked at the silver head's foot)

"Now I'll get revenge!" She whispered wickedly whilst walking to the front door. She knocked.

"Voi! I'm coming." She could hear from behind the door. Squalo opened it up. "What do you want, old woman?"

"Old woman?" The queen got offended. "You little… No… Good morning. I was just looking for my way in this forest. You see, I was picking up some mushrooms, and I got lost on my way… And since the sun will soon settle down, I was wondering if you could let me in…"

Squalo grimaced. "And why should I, you trash? It's your fucking fault for wandering stupidly in the forest."

The princess was about to turn heels when he suddenly felt a rope winding itself around his neck. He looked back to see the old woman strangling him with a wicked smile on her face. Squalo was starting to suffocate.

"What the… Gah!... hell, old… Oh shit… you old bitch?"

He was waving wildly to the kids who were only having their lunch casually, unaware of the silverette's distress (which was a great achievement since the latter was just three meters from them). Squalo finally fainted and fell on the ground.

 

Chapter 10 – Innocence

"You really are an idiot. A complete idiot." Gokudera frowned at the gasping long haired man.

He had been saved in extremis: the queen was hellishly trying to choke the princess to death when Lambo jumped at the old woman's back to ask for candies. The kid thought she was the witch in Hansel and Gretel's tail, you know, the one who has a house made with candies.

Anyway, it had been enough to make the queen run away.

"What the fuck was I supposed to do?" Squalo was rubbing at his aching throat. "I was tied up to the table, goddamnit!"

"So the queen found out your hideout?" Yamamoto crossed his arms, a look of concern on his face. "Isn't this bad for us?"

Hayato's air darkened. "Technically, this is a case of sequestration and complicity of sequestration."

"Eeeeh?" Tsuna was bewildered. "That's the worst!"

"That's extremely the worst!"

"Bwahahahaha! Take that, you shitty brats!" Squalo snorted viciously.

Chrome weakly raised a hand. "Um… Isn't it bad for you too, Squalo? Your mother is really trying to kill you."

"Ah. That's right."

…

Meanwhile in the castle…

"What?" The queen was appalled "What? What? What? What? What? He's still alive?"

Mukuro was switching idly the channels on TV. "Well… If you say he still was breathing and coughing when you left him, then the princess still must be alive."

The old woman grimaced at him and mumbled, "Humph. Pineapple head."

"What did you say, Majesty?"

"Nothing." She replied with a false innocence on her features. "For now, I'll just go back there and end correctly what I've begun."

So she did. This time wearing a costume not to be recognized by the silverette and even working on her accent (now she was rolling her r's), she went back to the house in the forest. The queen was bringing with her a comb which was poisoned with the most dangerous toxic one could find on Earth: the slightest contact with your skin and be sure you won't see the next sunrise.

"Ooooh oh! oh! oh! oh! This plan is perfect. Just perfect!"

She arrived in front of the door. Maybe it hadn't been very wise to come back the day right after the previous one, but you'll soon understand it didn't matter at all.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." Squalo opened the door. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oooh, only an old grrranny who sells beautiful things forrr beautiful girrrls…"

The silver head snapped. "Who the fuck are you calling a girl?"

"… like this lo-ve-ly comb." She showed the device to the fuming princess. "Look, nice shape, beautiful colorrrs, strrrong materrrial… Do you want to trrry it?" She pulled harshly at the silver mane.

"Fuck off, old shit!" Squalo wriggled. "Ouch! It hurts! Let go of… Ouch! Of meee!"

"It'll take…" Struggling, "only…" Struggling, "two seconds…" Struggling, "miss… just…" Struggling, "let me… comb your hairrr…" Struggling. "Oh, I give up."

The queen threw the comb away and, instead, used the long hair to strangle the princess. It was starting to get boring.

"Old woman…" Squalo gaped. "I tell you I don't… Grah!... Want your fucking… ugh! Comb…"

The princess lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground. Again.

 

Chapter 11 – Basket Case

And just like in a video game (if you hadn't forgotten to load the last level in the memory card), Squalo woke up the following day.

Nobody noticed he had spent the entire day lying cataleptic in front of the entrance.

That really was growing tiresome for the silverette. Two attempts of assassination within two days, that was truly irritating. But that day, he swore, he was going to be highly careful. He wouldn't let anyone come in, keep all the doors and windows shut close, and kick the ass of any sort of old bitch that would come too close to him.

Fortunately for him, he didn't have any weakness. He didn't have any weakness but stupidity, actually.

At eleven o'clock, the princess was done with the cooking. He had finished preparing the starter, the main dish and the dessert (a three floors chocolate cake). It even astonished him how much he easily got used with all that stuff. In the end, cooking can be entertaining, mainly when you're living in the middle of the woods, when you have no contact with civilization, and all you have to do is to take care of the kids and the house *cough* woman in jail *cough*.

He looked at the overloaded table. Ah, there was something missing, but what? He watched, watched, watched, when suddenly something slapped him on his face: no fruits! (Eat at least five fruits and vegetables every day) He looked in the fridge: nothing left anymore. And he was still tied up.

"Shiiit, now what do I do? Those stupid brats are going to grow obese if I continue like this. Where can I find… (Ding dong). Oh, there's someone on the door."

Now, can you imagine a very, very spectacular scene: Squalo walking in slow motion to the door, with a Wagnerian symphony as a background sound.

Ding dong.

"Yeah. What is that?" Squalo half opened the door, still unsure about a third assassination attempt. What he saw outside nearly startled him: not another old woman with a death aura, this time it was a little girl with a red hook on her head and a basket hanging at her hand. A towel was hiding its content. "What the fuck?"

"Madam," The little girl said with the sweetest voice "I was looking for my grandmother's house. Mother said it was somewhere in the forest, but she didn't give me a map. A wolf almost ate me, a tree almost fell on my head (but the lumberman apologized), and mother also forgot to give me breakfast this morning. Only this basket full of apples. But I can't eat one. It's for grandma."

'What the hell is wrong with that family?' Squalo thought to himself, then, aloud: "So? What do you want from me?"

"Well… I was wondering if you could show me the way. See, if you're willing to, I'll give you an apple."

The girl pulled at the towel, displaying red and green apples, each one more delicious than the other. She looked carefully at the fruits. She was on the brink of picking up one, but paused.

'Crap.' The queen (hidden behind the features of the girl) thought to herself. 'Which one was the poisoned one already?'

 

Chapter 12 – Apple of discord

"Oh, that's good," Squalo said to the little girl. "I was looking for some fruits anyway. Can you sell the entire basket?"

The little girl suddenly smiled maliciously.

"Yes, of course." She answered. "But before that, can you taste at least one? Wait, wait. I'm looking for a good one for you…"

'Now where the fuck is it?' The girl glared at the apples. 'I told that Mukuro guy to inject the poison in a red apple, but I forgot to tell him to put no red apple but the toxic one in the bag! Oh, God, but wasn't that obvious?'

"Voi, little girl, are you listening?" The princess was trying to attract the queen/red hook's attention. "That's okay, I said. Just give me one."

"It must be a red one," The queen was mumbling, rummaging in the basket. "At least I should try this one… or this one… Oh? Ah! All right, all right, here you are…"

And, unsure, she gave a red apple to the idiot princess. The latter took a bite of the juicy fruit.

"Yum. Yum. Yum. Not bad. Okay, now give me the basket."

The queen was looking at the silverette with bulging eyes. 'No effect? That shit had no effect? Ah! I knew I shouldn't have listened to that con Mammon again when she sold me the poison!'

"Ahem. Don't you want to eat another one? It's free." She took another apple and violently forced it in Squalo's mouth. No effect. Another one. No effect. And again another one. Still no effect.

The basket was half-empty and Squalo's jaws was starting to hurt by chewing all the apples. Seeing her archenemy still standing alive and her efforts vain, the queen was growing more and more impatient. It was useless trying to poison the idiot. This time, she took a green apple, eyed it prudently, then, using all the strength in her smaller arms, she thrust the fruit in the silver head's mouth, but deeper than before, until it reached his throat. The movement had been so rapid Squalo couldn't even have fought it.

"Eat that, you stupid, stupid, stupid pest!" The queen was snickering. "Did you think you could be more beautiful than me and steal my crown? I won't let another Barbie girl do that to me again!..."

"…!"

Squalo was choked to death. With a superhuman effort, he bit forcefully at the apple and at least got himself freed from the queen. However, he couldn't gulp down the piece of apple which just detached from the whole fruit. It stayed stuck in his throat, somewhere between the trachea and the pharynx.

He tumbled down. Squalo's face was turning purple with the lack of air. He couldn't ask for help and stomped on the floor with his freed foot. No one in the house. Those shitty kids, only there for eating his meals, never to help him out!

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! This time, it seems I finally got rid of you!" The little girl said with the queen's voice. She took the red hook off. That was indeed the old queen, slightly shrunk by age and lack of milk in her meals. "Now I'm the most beautiful one! Farewell!"

She left the princess writhing hellishly on the ground.

 

Chapter 13 – Save Our Souls

"Oh, my God! They killed Squalo!"

"You bastards!"

The kids looked agape at the corpse of the silver head which was wriggling painfully on the floor. His face was red like a tomato and his eyes bloodshot.

"Did the queen kill him?" Chrome asked. She omitted to add: when we were having lunch, barely three meters away from him.

"Yes, I only see this possibility." Gokudera leaned down to scrutinize the body. "She was the only one who had a motive to kill him, after all. Umm… Still no rigor mortis… This only means one thing: the murder happened this day!"

"Of course it happened this day!" Tsuna yelled. "Someone would have noticed it if a corpse have been lying at our entrance since yesterday!"

Ryouhei's eyes glistened. "Yes. That would have been extremely bothersome."

'I'm not fucking dead!' Squalo wanted to shout at the kids, but since no sound could come out from his mouth, he just thrashed more desperately.

"Nee, I want to eat the chocolate cake." Lambo stated while picking his nose. "If you don't want to, I'll eat the whole cake!"

"That's unfair! I want to have some too!"

"Don't forget me!"

"I'm sure that's what Squalo wanted for us."

The only one left after everyone was gone back in the diner room was Squalo, squirming agonizingly on the ground, and Yamamoto, who was looking at him with a sad smile. He bent down and slowly closed the silverette's eyelids.

"What a shame." He said. "I wanted to know you more… Don't finish the cake without me!" He yelled to the others while running to the diner room.

…

Three days passed by like this. After they finished the chocolate cake, the kids called for a legist to determine the cause of the silverette's death. The guy said it was because of half an apple obstructing his larynx. They asked if they had to fear for their own life. The doctor replied after few seconds of silence: "I better leave now."

At least Squalo found the courage to pull himself up to his bed. He had tried everything to get the fucking apple out of his throat, with no success. Now, he was utterly sure that it was better when people thought of him as a girl and not as a corpse.

After those three days, the house was beginning to look like a hog farm, and even to smell like a hog farm. Somehow, the kids found again their animal instincts. Now they were playing naked in the garden, wallowing in the mud and eating what they could find in the forest.

"God." The former princess would sigh with disgust every time he got a whiff of the mess surrounding him. "Someone, anyone, save me from this shit…"

 

Chapter 14 – The Language of Body

The rumor of a long haired crossdresser choked to death by an apple started to spread all over the country, and even outside. Just like every rumor, it had been sweetened and embellished by each one who heard it with the result that, when it reached the ear of the prince in the neighbor kingdom, it sounded like this: somewhere in a deep and dark forest, a beautiful princess with the loveliest silver mane was lying in wait for her true love.

It sure was differing a little from reality. It had at least the merit to attract all kind of tourists to the little house in the forest. And every one that saw Squalo's corpse resting/fidgeting on his bed would always say the same thing: what a wonder to see a cadaver that hadn't decayed yet one week after the person's death. That must be a miracle, a divine intervention.

No need to say that was annoying Squalo to no hell. What? He had a goddamn apple in his throat, he was struggling like a damned to take it out, and in addition to that he became some kind of freak show? They were kidding him, weren't they? The only wonder was that he hadn't died of starvation yet.

But, as if Someone up there noticed the princess' agony, a savior actually came to him.

He crossed mountains and precipices, defied and defeated all dangers on his way – deserts, floods, wild beasts, fake travel agencies and little animals of the forest, from rabbits to marmots – he defeated, overpowered and beat them all.

On his way, he had to cross a deep and wide river. The water was rambling wild, his horse shivered and bit against the bridle, but the man feared not. He rode night and day, never stopping his wild course, not even one second, to come and rescue the princess in the forest…

"… Maa… That's more or less what Master Xanxus told me to tell you." A young boy with blond hair falling on his face and hiding his eyes declared whilst waving his hand like a fan.

"Master Xanxus… You mean that man?" Tsuna pointed at the tanned skinned, dark haired and red eyed man who was emptying their fridge.

"Yeah… That's Master Xanxus." Belphegor showed him with both hands in a very theatrical way.

"Okay… But, you see, the princess is dead." Yamamoto said. "Look how he's lying so peacefully on the bed."

Squalo wasn't peaceful at all. You know, the apple in his throat and all that stuff.

"For a corpse, I think he's quite lively." Bel remarked.

"That's the gas. From the bacteria."

"Oh."

"…Kh… Arr…!"

"This body seems to be possessed by the evil." Bel grinned and showed a glimmering knife. "Master Xanxus, should I take care of this?"

Xanxus couldn't listen to him, too busy pigging out gammon and dried sausage.

"That's pointless." Gokudera shook his head. "The priest said it'll be fine after we bury the body."

"…!"

"Aaaah, Master Xanxus, they say they want to bury the body. What are we supposed to do? You hadn't grown necrophiliac, had you? Or at least, not as far as I know."

At those words, the raven turned back to look at Bel.

"He's here, Boss." The blonde pointed at Squalo.

With few long strides, Xanxus neared the silverette and, once in front of his bed, he leaned down to look plainly at the other's features.

Their faces were only inches apart. Squalo could feel the tanned man's warmth and his regular breath, so much they were close. That sudden intimacy was disturbing him. The princess felt weird under the insistent glare of the raven, his ruby orbs locking with his silver ones. It was the first time in his life he felt that weird.

Squalo sensed his cheeks slowly turning red, and this time not because of the choking. The strange feeling only grew weirder when Xanxus gradually lowered his head to Squalo's, their lips almost touching…

When suddenly the princess got punched in the stomach.

"Gah!" Squalo gasped loudly. The shock had been so hard the piece of apple actually flew out of the silver head's mouth. Tears were slowly filling his eyes. While breathing heavily, he said, "What… Ha… ha… the f-… haa… Ha… fu-uck…"

The house inhabitants watched the princess unexpectedly going back to life.

"He's alive to the extreme! That Xanxus guy really is the real thing." Ryouhei exclaimed. The kids applauded.

The silverette slowly sat on his bed. "Fucking… ha… ha… fucking shit… I've been alive all along… haaa… you shitty brats!"

He wanted to beat the shit out of the stupid kids, but Xanxus suddenly pulled his hands and made them rest against his chest. Squalo's face turned a red deeper than the red of strangulation as he saw the dark haired man's face coming closer. The prince captured Squalo's mouth with hungry urgency then sensually explored the silver haired man's moist cavern. Parting and licking the princess' swollen lips, he didn't let go of them before the latter was totally out of breath. The silverette gasped when they finally broke the kiss.

Xanxus dove intently his ruby stare into the greyish orbs.

"You beautiful one, you're safe with me. I love you more than anything else in the world. Come to the castle of my father, the king, and I'll marry you… That's more or less what Master Xanxus want to say to you." Bel leered.

"I didn't need you to tell that!" Squalo was blushing in embarrassment.

And they lived happily forever.

…

The queen got a failed surgery. Now she looks like that woman who wanted to look like Barbie, but in worse. The king and she are happy, too. In some way.

The seven Vongola kids still are playing in the wood. They're just wearing loin clothes. It doesn't make a big difference.

Levi is still looking for his way home.

Fran was freed from his jail. Now he's travelling the world to show the horror of prisons. Mukuro is still squatting in the queen's castle, and Mammon is still selling defective magic mirrors to people.

The end.


End file.
